To think this is a really awkward question

[TalkingToGhosts]

‘Where are you from?’

I’m dating. I get asked it an awful lot.

I’m a white, English born Brit but have dark features. I tan well and get mistaken for Western European quite often. I might be misconstruing the question and they mean ‘where are you based’ - but that’s right there on my profile so I don’t think it’s that.

I feel like I’m being fetishised a bit. Well not me specifically, but the thought that I look Spanish or Italian and that sounds exciting to them.

And I never know how to answer. I’m not ‘born and bred’ in one county as I’ve moved around a bit so it feels awkward to answer.

AIBU or is it a bit rude to ask that a few messages into a conversation?

@MandalaYogaTapestry

Give over

Oh gosh I was on a train a while ago and a really dishevelled guy who looked like he was on drugs got on and asked me for the time. I told him I didn't know and he got pretty offended at this and wouldn't shut up...he looked across to the other side of the carriage where a Chinese man was sat and said to me, well I couldn't ask him could I? Then rolled his eyes at me and told me he wasn't sure whether to ask me as he thought I was foreign too... I'm white with very dark hair/eyes...I'm fake tanned. I've been asked before if my heritage is from southern Europe.

My surname is unusual and very specific to one country and I'm often asked when did I move to UK. Does not offend me at all, I was born in London.

The thing is I don’t ask people who I think ‘look foreign’ (disclaimer- nobody does look foreign- what does that even mean🤷‍♀️).
I ask everyone I’m introduced to variations of where are you from? Are you local? I have found the response mixed and a bit upsetting as people can sometimes interpret it as if I’m questioning their entitlement to be present iykwim.
I’ve never experienced this reaction anywhere else in the world.

MandalaYogaTapestry

That's roughly how it feels for a "foreigner" to be asked where they are from by a stranger.

here you go, it's not the question the problem it's the way YOU decide to react to it. The same question will be asked exactly to anyone else, white looking, english looking (?), english accent or foreign accent..
It's such a shame to see an ulterior motive or an attack when there really is none most of the time. The issue is that you are uncomfortable being a foreigner, not that the person opposite actually cares one way or another. Let's face it, if a racist thinks you "look foreign " they won't be interested in talking full stop.

You could say that for a talk about the weather. Completely random small talk, but you can start being offended saying "why, do you think I am too pale (bad weather), do you think I am too tanned, too dark (sunny weather), too fat (sweaty and too hot...)

If you want to read something negative in anything you obviously can, but you just make your own life so much harder.

My problem was people’s reactions to my polite responses as they didn’t get the answer they wanted. This was the questioner getting offended. ‘Tell me where you’re from!’ ‘Well I’m English , both my parents were born in England, ‘but, but you don’t look English’ , ‘well the sperm that made my father is unknown (as he was illegitimate and born to an English mother at a time , the twenties, where it was shameful to be an unmarried mother , even worse with a brown baby)!’ ‘But that’s not a good enough answer ! You must know where he was from ! You are lying ! You are obviously not English!’ ‘No, that’s all I know’ and so on. The questioner would sometimes be so aggressive and red in the face at this point (obviously after we’d been round the houses a few times).
Which is why I’d sometimes just fend them off with a made up response ‘yep, how did you guess, I’m Spanish really’ or whatever they wanted.

I would never ask this in relation to skin colour/ appearance but I probably would in relation to accent if it was a dating/ small talk situation. Probably more likely about a regional British/ Irish accent than a 'foreign' accent. Your accent does usually reflect where you were brought up and often isn't the same as your parents. In a dating scenario (or even in a taxi) a chat about where you were brought up isn't odd and is often welcomed. I get asked about my Welsh accent a fair bit and I don't mind that at all. I don't feel unwelcome or othered by someone realising I wasn't brought up round here.

I definitely think asking someone where they are from based on skin colour is based in a racist assumption that non-white people can't be British but accent I think is different
Or am I wrong and should never ask again?

I can still recall the time many years ago when I introduced my black British boyfriend of the time to my ancient granny who had never been out of her all white very rural Welsh village. She asked him where he was from and when he truthfully replied 'Birmingham' she said 'oh yes I suppose you could be'
Wanted the ground to open up
(He was sweet about it and they actually got on well after that because he was the kind of very nicely brought up, respectful to elders young man that she liked)

Definitely YABU. In my dating days it was a standard question and I’m a pale, white Caucasian female. I think it’s about making small talk and getting to know one another.

Yabu. I think you are reading too much into this. I have been asked if I'm all sorts of nationalities, not necessarily due to how I look but phrases I may have used that people interpret as being South African or Irish or Turkish.

Christ, I'm wondering what we're actually allowed to talk to people about now. It's just small talk. Give it a rest.

YANBU and I understand about being fetishised as some kind of exotic being.

In my case, I am Chinese, born in an EU country, grew up in the south but now live in the north. I have a very British accent but a very Chinese name. When I get asked this, I usually say the town I live in, but the reject my answer so , I tell them where I grew up, where I was born until they ask "No, where are your parents born before telling me they have some long distant relative who worked in Hong Kong for a few weeks or whatever.
The conversation usually stops there.

I do think mind getting asked about where I am from, but when the only answer they will accept is one that relates to my ethnicity, then why not just ask what my ethnicity is?

I’m wondering if this is

If it’s not then, people get asked this because of their accent, because of their name or how they look and quite probably just because it’s an ice breaker.

Online dating is getting to know people and I always find it interesting listening to people’s stories and how they ended up where they did, whether that be their job or the city they chose to move from- was it uni? Do they enjoy it etc...(if they say I’m from here that’s the boring answer so end of lol)

@steppemum exactly! "No, where are you really from?"

Jannice by your own logic, any question can be deemed innocent or offensive depending on how the person in question reacts to it. But that's not true, is it? As an example, there are many threads here about situations when people genuinely didn't mean to be racist yet a black person got offended and explained why so. We listen and we learn. You are not a foreigner so you cannot possibly know how it feels to be othered by your non-UK accent. I am white and as integrated as I could ever be. And it is a downer when people choose to let me know instantly that I am "not one of them". A person with an UK accent would say "I am from Scotland" and that's that. I cannot just say "I am from Hampshire". More detail is expected and it is annoying.

Therefore, getting back to your original point, it would be a good idea just to take note, not to dismiss it as "my choice to react" and simply not to probe.

PS As can be seen from this thread alone, it is not just me who has a problem with it.

This video is great too m.youtube.com/watch?v=RU_htgjlMVE

MandalaYogaTapestry

You are not a foreigner so you cannot possibly know how it feels to be othered by your non-UK accent
I am not British for a start ... I absolutely give people the right to be offended, but that's on them. It's such a generic non-personal question that the only alternative is to ignore these people completely!

I do find it annoying and awkward (which isn't the same thing as finding something offensive) because pretty much every time the asker says they're asking because of my accent or how I look so it doesn't feel - as many have said - that this is something they ask everyone. When someone is asking everyone, it can be nice, but it's really obvious when I'm being singled out when people say that regularly (often with a twinkly laugh about how they know they hear an accent) or when I'm with my spouse who also doesn't have a local accent but is rather paler than me.

That said, I'd far rather they asked than guessed at me (asking without saying it's because of something weird "interesting" about me would be even better). The vast majority of people are really not as good at guessing accents or ethnicities as they think they are. I've had more than a few people get really defensive about how they're 'usually really good at it' when I've corrected them to the point I sometimes just don't -- as long as I'm not mistaken for someone from a tongue-in-cheek shudder coastal state. My poor Midwestern heart can't take that. I wonder how many who are convinced they're great at it have just come across more than a few people like me who've given up when people treat me like a guessing game they want to win.

Has Western Europe been moved post-Brexit?

I have a very mixed European and jewish background and have been mistaken as anything from Chinese to indian !
I'm never offended, in fact I find it very interesting and I might get one of those ancestry kits .
Each to their own though

But if you were white British born in London and now living near Manchester or Carlisle your accent would tell anyone that you were from down south - it is not a bad thing it is just part of you?

I don’t think it’s othering as such, but as I said - in person people have been disappointed when I’ve said ‘from the midlands’. Like they were expecting some exotic to them and I’m not, hence the ‘fetishising’ comment.

Yeah I think that’s just because Spain and Italy are nice places. People go on holiday there, they have nice memories of those places, they’re interested in chatting about those countries. I’m sure the Midlands are very nice too, but I’d also be a bit ‘oh, OK, if you told me you were from there.

I struggle with making conversation so I love it when the person is from a different country because there’s instantly a hundred different questions I can ask them. I wouldn’t be ‘fetishising’ you, I just enjoy travelling and like learning about other countries.